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Step by step PG2 Mods
Introduction Every player gets bored after playing the original SSI campaigns several times. So the player wishes to try some new campaigns. But to play new campaigns there have to be some modifications installed. This will be a step by step set of instructions on how to install PG2 and all the various modifications. Installing original PG2 (including Official Patch information) There are two possible installations: 1. Installation from the PG2 CD You put the CD into your CD or DVD ROM. If your computer supports the autorun, you will get interactive instructions on how to install the game. 2. Installation from the PG2 Zone edition available from panzergeneral2. You next have to patch your program to the official version 1.02. There are different language versions of this patch. Some assistance and a lot more information about the official patches is here. The following are the official SSI patches and you must install them for most other upgrades to work; the patche programs must complete successfully with no errors - otherwise you have to reinstall PG2 and start again). Official English v1.02 patch (for USA version) - 1829KB Official English v1.02 patch (for UK version) - 1452KB Official French v1.02 patch - 263KB Official German v1.02 patch - 1356KB Maps If you have installed the PG2 Zone edition, you can skip this step. In order to be able to install various game enhancements (mods), you will have to modifiy your exsisting PG2 installation. Your first step is to copy all the maps from the PG2 CD. You must copy the scenario and map folder from the CD. After you have copied the two folders, mark them. Then you right click the two folders, and a menu apears. In the menu you select properties. A new window will apear. At the bottom of the window uncheck the read-only attribute. Then you just click Apply and the changes will be done. A good page with map installation information is here. Please note that you should follow the above instructions EXACTLY... most installation problems are due to not installing maps correctly. Once this is done you can remove the CD from your drive. In the future as you add new maps put the graphics (the .shp files) in the new "MAP" folder and the map information (the .map files) in your "SCENARIO" folder. Music and Voice Briefings. Once the CD is out of the drive, you will have to do one of the following two things (even if you normally do not listen to the music or briefings). Either: a. Turn music and briefings off completely. Open any scenario. Select additional options. Select music volume. Click the on/off button above the volume slide. This will stop the game trying to access your CD drive and dramatically slowing the game down. NOTE: EVEN IF YOU DO NOT LISTEN TO THE MUSIC YOU HAVE TO TURN IT OFF!! Or... b. Listen to the music and briefings. Copy the complete contents of the "sound" folder on your CD to an identically named folder in your main PG2 folder on your computer. Select all the files and de-select the "read-only" attributes (just like you did with the maps). Then you have to run the game using the "unofficial" patch (see below). Installing modifications Graphics upgrade - "Datup" The datup includes all the new and old icons plus the animations for units fireing. Without the newest datup, most of the up to date equipment files and the most recent patcheswill not work properly, meaning that there will be units without appearence. The latest datup is available at Adlerkorps in the equipment section, at The Clearinghouse and at The Stahlhelm Team. All the sites have the up to date modifications available. Installing the datup is quite simple. All you have to do is download the datup.zip from either of the sites, then you unpack it and copy the panzer2.dat to your panzer2 folder, usually c:\panzer2\ owerwriting the exsisting panzer2.dat. Unofficial Patches The last official patch was 1.02. Then came the unofficial patches. The latest is (as on 14.6.2005) PG2UK210. The patches are executable files, meant to replace the original panzer2.exe. Newer patches do not owerwrite the older ones, so you can still play with older patches. The installation of the patches is also quite simple. You must download the patch from either Adlerkorps, The Clearinghouse or The Stahlhelm Team. After that you unpack the .exe file to your panzer2 folder. To play with the patch you have to start the game with the new executable file. NOTE: The unofficial patches only work with English language (US and UK) versions of the game; or with upgraded French/German versions. For users of French and German versions you have to upgrade all the text files (files ending in either .deu or .fra) to text (.txt) and remove a number of characters that will cause the US and UK versions to crash. There is a tool to do this the Deu/Fra Textconverter - 1.49MB. Equipment files Equipment files are files that contain the information about units available for various nations. The procedure for installing them is the same as for the datup and patches. You download the equipment file from internet and unpack all the files to your panzer2 folder. Sound upgrade - "Soundup" Soundup is a sound upgrade, that adds various newer sounds to the game. After you have downloaded the soundup2005.zip (the most recent version) file from either Adlerkorps or The Clearinghouseor The Stahlhelm Teamyou just unpack it. Then you run the soundup2005.exe and just follow the instructions. The .exe file will ask you where you want to unpack the files. You select your panzer2\sfx folder and after the unpacking process is finished, just run the install.bat file located in your panzer2\sfx folder and voila! your soundup is installed. Installing various custom campaigns Now we have come to the installation of custom campaigns. Most newer campaigns need custom maps and custom efiles. The installation procedure for efiles is described two chapters higher and the installation of custom map I will describe a chapter or two lower. The best way (although sometimes a bit long) to find a campaign to play is to check the complete list of custom campaigns and their reviews here. Campaigns can be then downloaded from The Cleringhouse. Most of the campaigns have a readme file attached, in which there is a list of custom maps needed and sometimes also the instructions on how to install them. The procedure is as follows: First you download the campaign. Then you unpack it. In the zip file there will be several different files. There will files with these suffixes: .scn, .cam and .txt. These files you must copy to your panzer2\scenario folder. Sometimes there is an equipment file needed for the campaign included with the download. The next step is to check which maps you are missing. One way is to read the readme file and download all the required maps from one of the following sites: The Cleringhouse The Stahlhelm Team panzergeneral2 But if you allready have a lot of custom maps installed, you can run a campaign reporter which will tell you which maps you are missing. There are two campaign reporters available: the PG2Suite and Progi's campaign reporter tool, both available from either Adlerkorps or The Cleringhouse. Now to installing maps. All the maps have two essential parts: the .shp files and the .map files. The easiest way is to download all the .map files in one zip file (ussually named mapnames.zip) and just unpack them in your panzer2\scenario folder. Then you have to download the .shp files. Those are the graphics files, while the .map files contain only terrain descriptions. When you downloaded the .shp files in a zip file, you unpack them to your panzer2\map folder. Yes thats right: The .map, .scn, .cam and .txt files go to your panzer2\scenario folder and .shp files go to your panzer2\map folder, otherwise campaigns won't work and maps won't show up in the game. Category:PG2